RUSH: Josh in Jackson Center, Pennsylvania. You’re first today. Great to have you on the program. Hi.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. It’s an honor to be on with you.

RUSH: Thank you very much.

CALLER: I’d just like to ask you to please stop calling us Trump supporters names. Try to get on board because Trump is gonna get the nomination, and our goal here is to beat Hillary Clinton.

RUSH: I understand.

CALLER: He’s the only one that’s gonna be able to do it.

RUSH: I understand the goal is to beat Hillary Clinton. I understand in a lot of primary voters that’s what guides their vote, who’s gonna beat Hillary because that’s number one the objective. I didn’t call all of you Trump supporters brain-dead, but I’m glad you cited that because I need to address it. That whole incident haunted me and I’ll tell you why: ‘Cause I’ve been in it. You know, a lot has happened to me in 28 years doing this show. I have been in all kinds of circumstances.

I’ve not run for office, but I am treated, in ways — or have been — as somebody who is or as somebody who wants that kind of power. So I’ve been treated as somebody who needs to be exposed as a fraud or what have you. I have been subjected to stacked audiences when I guest hosted TV shows of people that were diametrically opposed to everything I believed, and were in there for one reason only, and that was to disrupt. I’ve been there. I’ve been in that situation Cruz was in with that guy — the dark-glasses guy — yesterday, I can’t tell you how many times.

And that situation, by the way, is one of the reasons I don’t do any media, because that’s just like talking to reporters. You cannot change their minds. It’s not the point. They don’t… They’re not there to have their minds changed. That guy was there to… Actually, Cruz approached him; I understand that. But that guy was there, just as somebody that had no desire to actively engage with anybody on any issue of substance whatsoever, and Cruz crossed the street to engage the guy.

I’ll tell you why he did it. It was not trying to persuade that guy, ’cause that’s a lost cause. What Cruz was trying to… I’m guessing here, but it’s because of my experience guided by intelligence. I think what Cruz wanted to do was get a video sound bite of him explaining the issues to a Trump supporter and telling the Trump supporter how Trump is not telling him the truth about things. I think Cruz is frustrated that he hasn’t been able to get much substance in this campaign because he’s always being asked to react to this or that that Trump is saying or doing.

Cruz knows the media hates him. He knows the media is against him. He knows that he’s not gonna be treated with any kind of respect like Trump will be or like Hillary will be. He knows all of this, just like I know it every time I find myself in a situation like that. I have chosen not to put myself in those situations anymore. I had to learn early on, for example, that in a media interview… I actually thought in the early days that the media was really interested in what I thought. You know, I was new; there was nobody like me on the radio. I was a conservative nationally. Maybe they really…

They’re not. All they wanted was to find ways of literally destroying me, or harming my image or what have you. I mean, my first appearance on Crossfire on CNN was a total setup. You go in there and you go to the greenroom, and the producer comes in and does the “interview” with you. The pre-interview. Sometimes these happen on the phone before your appearance, sometimes they happen in the greenroom, and the producer makes you think they really want to find out what you want to talk about.

“What is it you feel passionate about? What is it that you want to tell our host or hostess today?” And the real purpose of the pre-interview — when it’s conservatives — is to find out what ticks them off. It’s to find out what sets them off. It’s to find out… I have yet to be in a pre-interview… Other than with a couple of people at Fox, I have yet to have anything in a pre-interview actually reflected in the real interview that I did on any show. I don’t do ’em anymore. I just do not trust them. I have no evidence to believe that any of those people want to help me look good.

By that, I mean, they don’t want to get out of the way and let me be me. Whatever I do, they’re gonna take it out of context in further reports. They’re gonna castigate me. They’re going to chop it up and make it appear to be what they think I am and so forth. I cringed when I saw Cruz cross the street, ’cause I knew exactly what was gonna happen. And the reason I called the guy brain-dead is cause that’s how he acted. “Trump! Trump! Trump! Lyin’ Ted! Lyin’ Ted!”

He had no desire to engage Cruz. Cruz was being polite. He crossed the street, wanted to engage the guy in conversation about issues. I literally was cringing when it happened; I cringed when it was over. Because it wasn’t gonna work. And the audio was such that, even if Cruz was trying to create something viral that could be on social media that would show him politely and graciously encountering a Trump supporter and explaining the issues (and hoping that that would go viral), it didn’t have much of a chance ’cause the audio wasn’t good enough for that to happen.

All the Trump people were shouting this or that, encouraging this guy. “Trump! Trump! Trump! Lyin’ Ted! Lyin’ Ted!” You know, Cruz was polite. He was everything that you would want somebody to be, and he’s being mocked and laughed at and made fun of as a square, as a nerd, as a loser or what have you, which is exactly right in line with what’s happening in our culture today. It is the renegades, and it’s been this way for a long time. The renegades and the — well, however you want to characterize them.

The people that do not stay within the guard rails of reality, they’re the ones that are celebrated and praised. They get rich. They’re made heroes. We’ve made celebrities out of them, and people that don’t do that are just dull and boring and dryballs and usually tagged as conservatives or what have you. So I was not calling all Trump supporters brain-dead. You’ve heard me talk about the Trump people. You’ve heard me lionize the Trump people. You’ve heard me, on this program, celebrate the Trump people and explain to people why certain people behind Trump support him.

This guy was no different than a Code Pink protester, and so that’s that. I’m sorry. I wasn’t able to separate the personal experiences I’ve had just like that over the course of my career, and I knew it was gonna work when I watched it happening and I watched the replay. I knew it wasn’t gonna work, and frankly there’s a part of me that still — even though I know the drill and I know the lay of the land and I know the reality and I’m the mayor of Realville.

It still bugs me when uses like that end up the winner in a circumstance like that. But welcome to America 2016, or whatever it is. There was no way… Now, as to your point about getting on board with Trump, let me tell you something. Josh, let me tell you: This is another reason why, for any of you who want to know why I don’t endorse. Can you imagine the phone calls I would be getting today asking me to defend this Zodiac Killer stuff and Cruz’s dad meeting with Oswald before the assassination?

That’s exactly why.

There’s a whole lot of explanations for the way I think, operate, and act just in the last two days of the Indiana primary. Now, do not misunderstand. I’m not complaining about it. I’m just laying the land out. What was sad to me about it was that Ted Cruz had no chance. There was no way that was gonna turn out positive for Ted Cruz. Not possible. The deck was stacked. (interruption) Well, I don’t have… (interruption) No, it’s not up to me to tell him. He’s got people around that know this. If I know Cruz, he looks at those kind of things as challenges. If he could get to somebody like that, then he’s got a chance.

I’m sure he looks as every one of those things as a golden opportunity and so forth.

You can’t blame him for that.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here’s Chris in St. Louis. Welcome, sir. Great to have you.

CALLER: Hey, Rush. Great day. Long time no talk to you. I want to talk about that guy. Ted Cruz had that little thing yesterday. It… Here’s my theory. It seemed to me he decided to pick out — and I’m a Trump supporter, okay? — the kind that probably wasn’t the most with it, okay? ‘Cause I think Cruz wanted to make it as an opportunity to make us Trump supporters look like idiots. Well, it kind of backfired on him. I think the guy would have had a little bit more upstairs to actually question what Cruz was asking him when he brought up the Second Amendment, that Trump supported Bill Clinton.

That was 20-something years ago. People change. I was a Democrat up until Obama’s second term. Never again. I mean, it took me awhile for him to basically put my life into the hole. I make… Okay, I’m middle class, make a decent amount of money. But goods and services keep going up; my wages stay the same. I think Cruz is part of the establishment. He would not get my vote. I’m not gonna sit there and call him Lyin’ Ted, whatever. He does lie about… All politics is lies about things, okay? But I think that he picked that guy out ’cause… I mean, I know it’s Indiana, but he looked like a Hoosier. The guy was missing teeth, and he really didn’t have any substance upstairs —

RUSH: Well, let me jump in and explain to you… Look, first thing is, I understand people would be offended if you’re a Trump supporter by my calling the guy brain-dead. I was describing not his actual existence. The role he was playing there was a brain-dead Trump supporter who was not interested — closed-minded, not interested — in what Cruz had to say. My problem with this is I can’t not make this personal, because I’ve had this kind of thing happen to me. I’ve been in… That may not be the way to put it. I’ve been involved in things like this.

My experiences as host of this show in dealing in situations like that are many and varied and multifaceted. Now, I just want to tell you something about Ted Cruz. I mean, you can believe it or not. Ted Cruz did not cross that street thinking that he was… How did you say it? You described Cruz talking that way, approaching that guy in a way I disagreed with, and I thought how it described… You said, “Cruz crossed the street thinking…” (interruption) No, not the Hoosier. It’s not that. His objective in crossing the street was wrong.

(interruption) Find what he said Cruz was gonna find across the street and do. Keep going back further. Ah. I want to read the transcription: “I think Cruz wanted to make it an opportunity to make Trump supporters look like idiots.” That’s it: “like idiots.” That is not why Cruz crossed the street. He didn’t. He saw an opportunity here. He was not trying to make the guy look like an idiot. Ted Cruz is trying to make himself look like who he is. Let me just tell you, Ted Cruz… Look, I don’t talk to Ted Cruz. I don’t talk to people on the campaign, any campaign.

All I’m doing is imagining. I’ve been in these circumstances, I’ve been faced with this, and Ted Cruz is not trying to make somebody look like an idiot. Ted Cruz is trying to tell this guy that he is believing wrong things about Cruz and that he is believing wrong things about Trump. Ted Cruz crossed that street in earnest. Ted Cruz crossed the street wanting to be honest with the guy. Ted Cruz crossed the street knowing that that guy thinks he’s Lyin’ Ted, knowing that that guy thinks he’s an idiot, knowing that that guy thinks he’s establishment.

Ted Cruz thought he would cross that street and use that guy as an opportunity to tell everybody they’re wrong in what they think about him. If I’m Ted Cruz, I’m frustrated to the heavens at how I’ve been characterized by the Trump campaign and by the media. Lucifer, Zodiac Killer, some of these other characterizations of no fun and serious, all these other insults. And I think Cruz cares deeply about this country and is just as worried as everybody else is that we’re losing it. He’s got specific beliefs about how to save the country, and they’re rooted in the Constitution.

But he can’t get past Lyin’ Ted with people.

So he sees a Trumpster across the street; he sees an opportunity. It wasn’t to ridicule the Trump guy. It was to try to tell everybody watching that bit that Cruz is not who they think he is. And that’s what was… I’ve learned you can’t do that, not in a circumstance like that. (sigh) It’s one of these really frustrating things. How many of you…? If I can be personal a minute just to illustrate, how many of you — even after 27 years — run into people who’ve never listened to me?

You do, and you like the program, and you hear people say the weirdest, stupidest things about me that you know are not true, and you try to tell ’em. They won’t believe you; they won’t listen; they don’t want to believe it. But you force them to listen, maybe, and then they change their mind afterward. That’s all Ted Cruz is trying to do, is change some people’s minds who have believed a bunch of BS about him.

Not because he wants to make them look bad but because he wants to get elected to save the country. He’s serious about that. He’s not a liar. He’s not a reprobate. His character is as great as anybody’s could be in 2016 America. He is serious all the time. He may have trouble looking like a regular guy. He may have trouble looking like he laughs and goes to ball games and so forth. But he is just as committed to saving the country as anybody the hell else is in this campaign and beyond.

So he’s looking… We’re down to the last gasp here. This is Indiana. The election is the next day. He sees some Trump people across the street. He looks at it as one last opportunity to get through to people, not to ridicule them. He’s hoping to gain their respect! He’s hoping to make them understand that he is not what they think of him. That’s all it is. The frustrating thing is, I know that it doesn’t work. It never has worked. Because you’re immediately on the defensive when you do it.

You’re talking to this guy who’s got this smirk on his face who doesn’t want to believe anything he already doesn’t believe. So he sees Cruz walk across the street, and all he sees is an opportunity to humiliate Cruz. “Trump! Trump!Trump!Trump! Lyin’ Ted! Lyin’ Ted! Lyin’ Ted!” Meanwhile, Cruz doesn’t give up. He keeps trying to tell the guy who he is, keeps trying to tell the guy what’s important, keeps trying to tell the guy that Trump’s lying to you him, blah, blah, all this stuff. It took Richard Nixon close to 10 years to change the perception of him the media built. And it happened in a town hall meeting on a national TV show that nobody knew was coming in 1968.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: That be Georgia in Hammonton, New Jersey. George, you’re next. Great to have you with us today. Hello.

CALLER: Okay, Rush. Thank you for taking my call. Been with you for many years. Love you. I just have this feeling — I don’t know why — but I just have a feeling that you’re a Cruz supporter. Not a Trump supporter, I can’t find that, but that’s how I feel. But the reason I called, I just wanted to defend the guy that you called brain-dead yesterday. I watched that interview from the beginning, and, you know, we’ll call him “braid-dead” since we don’t know his name. He was a very polite protester. He was standing on the street with a Trump sign, and he wasn’t bothering anybody, and, lo and behold, who comes along to cross the street, Ted Cruz.

Now, Cruz confronted him, and in the very beginning of the conversation, the number 1237 came up, and the guy knew what 1237 was, and he told Cruz in his opinion that Trump was gonna hit the 1237 and in his opinion would probably go over that. And then he also asked Cruz a question. He said, “I’d like to ask you a question. Why don’t you step out of the race because you’ve indicated that Kasich should step out, and, since you’ve indicated that, you think that Kasich can’t make it, and neither do we think that you can, why don’t you step out?”

Now, the reason I mentioned these couple things to you, that doesn’t seem to me as a brain-dead person. That’s just my opinion. And a brain-dead person is just gonna stand there and look brain-dead. This guy had some some some substance there. So I didn’t think it was fair that you labeled him as brain-dead. Then Cruz started his stump speech. And the guy was polite. He was listening and listening and listening, and Cruz was going over all his stump speech. And I think the guy had had it and finally didn’t want to hear anything more, and he started yelling, you know, Lyin’ Ted, Lyin’ Ted, and he had had it. And that’s just my opinion. And I — I just feel that you labeled him wrong. And I might even think that sometimes maybe I might be part of the brain-dead crowd.

Another thing I just wanted to put in there real quick, I have a cleaning lady that was in my house yesterday, and she’s from Thailand. And Trump came on television, and she looked up and she said, I used to work for him. I live 30 miles from Atlantic City. So she said, I used to work for him. And my wife said, what did you think? Again. And she said, he was very nice, he was a very nice person, he treated me with respect, and so did he treat all of us.

Now, they were just cleaning people in Trump’s casino. One other quickie. I was in a restaurant a couple weeks ago, and the owner who I know came up to me, and he knows I’m a Trump guy, and he said I just gotta tell you something, he said I just had a guy was in here, and he got caught up in Trump’s problems with the casino and he lost a hundred thousand dollars in the bankruptcy. He said, but I’m gonna tell you something. I lost a hundred G’s, he says I’m gonna tell you, I’m voting for him. You know why? He’s a straight shooter. He said he got caught up in a bad situation, and he did his very best, he says, so he’s got my vote. I just wanted to pass these things on, and I want to tell you, I love you, I’ll always be with you.

RUSH: I appreciate that, sir. I do. I don’t know — you’ve been on hold for a while, and I don’t know if you heard while on hold my explanation of this entire event with Cruz and the brain-dead guy. Sorry. I just couldn’t. With the Einstein Trump supporter. I don’t need to rehash it again. It was just a half hour ago so whenever I — maybe an hour ago now that I that went through it. There’s one point, and nobody here’s got any animus for Trump either. Nobody can accuse me of any of that. Two things, you know, who Trump is and what kind of guy he is, had nothing to do with that Cruz event. I just think it was a lost cause from the minute Cruz crossed the street, and I wish he hadn’t done it, but I know his motivation. I know he was trying to get through to the guy. You call it stump speech.

Just saying one more time, Trump is — I mean, Cruz is tired of being lied about, mischaracterized, he’s desperate to try to get through to people, wants to win this, loves the country, he wants it fixed, he wants it saved and so forth and so on. He’s got his theories and ideas about how to do it. But he’s not Lyin’ Ted and his dad didn’t help Lee Harvey Oswald kill JFK, and he’s not the Zodiac killer. You know, he’s got people out there thinking that he is. Oh, yeah, the four mistresses, none of which have come forward yet. Another National Enquirer story there. I mean, how can a guy who’s so universally reviled and hated and here’s another, it’s all, you know what, you know what I read yesterday, last night, something about his daughters were so afraid of him, they won’t be in the same room at him at home. Of course it’s garbage, but this is this kind of stuff that’s out there.

And, you know, Trump supporters or anybody else, media, hey, I understand it, your daughters hate you, too, Lyin’ Ted, is that true? The one thing I didn’t finish that I need to explain here, I mentioned Cruz is essentially trying to change this public perception of him that has — that has been created by other people, and you and I can’t do it. A point that I made, it took Richard Nixon 10 years. Richard Nixon for most of his life was hated and reviled anyway. He was hated and reviled when he was Ike’s vice president, was hated and reviled after that, then he happened to beat a woman in California named Helen Gahagan Douglas, the Hillary of her day, and hated Nixon!!!!! And he was exiled in 1962, he was gone, he may as well have just walked into the sea in San Clemente and not come back.

And then 1968 Roger Ailes puts together a town hall meeting with Nixon — live prime time TV, Nixon in the round just answering questions from people and totally recaptured and rebuilt his public image on that one hour-long TV show, but it took him ten years to do it and then Watergate came along and he lost it again. So it’s a tough thing. It’s very frustrating when you are mischaracterized that way. It really doesn’t happen to liberals. It does not happen to leftists. They don’t get — not by the media. And liberals don’t get made fun of on Saturday Night Live and all of that kind of stuff.